(Senior) Postdoctoral Research Scientist – Foundation Models for Biology

Applications are invited for a Postdoctoral Research Scientist (SC6) or Senior Postdoctoral Research Scientist (SC5) to join Professor Ke Li’s newly established AI for Biology Group at the Earlham Institute, Norwich, UK. This is a full-time, 36-month position, with the possibility of extension.

The group builds on Professor Li’s established and well-funded programme in fundamental AI, AI co-scientists and biological discovery, including RNA sequence–function modelling, structure prediction and inverse design. At Earlham, the group will develop an ambitious Generative Digital Biology (GDB) programme: multimodal, cross-organism and experimentally grounded AI systems that learn from biological data, generate hypotheses, guide experimental design and accelerate scientific discovery.

The role

We seek an ambitious researcher to develop original foundation model methods for biology. The successful candidate will work on the pre-training, post-training, adaptation and rigorous evaluation of models for hypothesis generation and experimentally grounded discovery.

The post offers substantial scope to shape a new frontier AI programme, lead high-impact research, publish in leading AI and computational-biology venues, and contribute to major funding proposals. You will collaborate across the Institute on multimodal biological foundation models, AI-guided design-build-test-learn workflows, and open algorithms, benchmarks and reproducible research.

Research environment

You will have access to substantial AI infrastructure, including dedicated state-of-the-art NVIDIA H200 GPU servers, additional capacity through the Norwich Data Centre, and national-scale compute through Isambard-AI. Collaboration with the Earlham Biofoundry provides routes to model-guided experimental design and, where appropriate, closed-loop workflows supported by established laboratory automation. Earlham’s position within Norwich Research Park also enables close interaction with world-leading bioscientists.

About you

You will have a PhD, awarded or expected within six months, in Computer Science, AI, Machine Learning, Computational Biology, Mathematics, Statistics, Physics, Electrical Engineering or a related quantitative discipline.

You should have excellent coding and system development skills; practical experience with PyTorch, JAX or TensorFlow; and experience with GPU, HPC or cloud computing, Linux, version control and reproducible research.

Applicants should demonstrate experience developing, adapting or evaluating original AI algorithms, together with research outputs in top-tier AI conferences, such as ICML, NeurIPS, ICLR, AAAI, CVPR, etc. Experience in foundation model pre-training, large-scale model training, or genomics, transcriptomics, proteins, DNA or RNA is highly desirable.

Appointment at SC5 requires additional evidence of research leadership, independence, delivery of a research direction with limited supervision, leadership of high-quality outputs, and the ability to coordinate collaborations and support junior researchers.

Salary: £39,000–£46,500 at SC6 or £47,450–£52,560 at SC5, depending on experience and appointment level.

This role meets the criteria for a visa application. Earlham Institute is a Disability Confident employer and guarantees an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria.

Closing date: 4 September 2026

Further information: https://colalab.ai/

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